Hypothetical: What if the other line had been chosen?

[najaB]

The discussion of the Highland Mainline got me thinking about this, but I suppose it applies elsewhere in the network.

There used to be two routes from Aviemore to Inverness - the Inverness and Aviemore Direct Railway (the current line) and the Inverness and Perth Junction Railway. Was it, in hindsight, the right decision to retain the former and close the latter?

Any thoughts on other examples? Answers on a postcard, please.

 

[Esker-pades]

If one had to go, the right one went. There would be huge capacity problems on the single track sections between Inverness and Forres if everything went along that route. Even more than there are now.

 

[najaB]

If one had to go, the right one went. There would be huge capacity problems on the single track sections between Inverness and Forres if everything went along that route. Even more than there are now.

There is that, true.

 

[Edgeley]

Beeching proposed the withdrawal of all passenger services on the Hope Valley route between Sheffield and Manchester. There was a reprieve, and subsequently it was the Woodhead route which got the axe. With hindsight the Woodhead line should have been retained too.

 

[najaB]

With hindsight the Woodhead line should have been retained too.

But would it have been better if the Hope Valley line had shut instead of the Woodhead route?

 

[RLBH]

From a purely selfish viewpoint, the Slochd cutoff was nothing but bad news. It would have been much more convenient when I was at university to be able to get a direct train to Forres. Presumably if it was retained then the line from Forres to Inverness would have had to be redoubled at some point. From a wider network point of view, the Slochd cutoff is definitely the better route.

Beeching proposed the withdrawal of all passenger services on the Hope Valley route between Sheffield and Manchester. There was a reprieve, and subsequently it was the Woodhead route which got the axe. With hindsight the Woodhead line should have been retained too.

I've come across the argument that it was closing the Bakewell Valley line that doomed Woodhead. When the Midland route to Manchester closed, there was a need to handle some of the remaining freight flows in that area, and the Hope Valley was the best alternative. With Hope Valley protected, and only one Manchester-Sheffield route required, Woodhead closed. In some ways, Bakewell and Woodhead together would be preferable to Hope Valley.

On the other hand, it would mean that Sheffield would have to continue with two main-line stations and lose out on connection opportunities as a result, so I'm not sure it would be much of an improvement.

How about the competing routes from Partick to Clydebank and Dumbarton - the North British route via Jordanhill or the Caledonian route via Partick West?

 

[underbank]

Personally, I think the Lancaster Green Ayre to Morecambe line should have been kept and the Bare Lane line closed down. It was probably the right decision at the time, given rail traffic in the 70s (oil trains, long holiday trains etc needing quick/easy access to the main line). But, given today's rail traffic which is just DMUs and the occasional nuclear flask train, the Green Ayre line would do the same. But more importantly, the Green Ayre line would have facilitated a better local commuter/shopper route of more regular shuttles between Heysham, Morecambe, and Lancaster without needing to go onto the WCML at all and more people live near to the old Green Ayre/Scale Hall/Westgate route meaning far more people would use it to travel locally thus reducing car congestion etc especially if Scale Hall station had survived and maybe new small stations near Torrisholme, West End, Heysham etc where population density would now merit it. The Bare Lane route is useful for people living near Bare Lane (for which it is busy), but comparatively few people live near Morecambe station nor Heysham station, so the surviving line doesn't have the same scope for expansion of numbers and even so, there'll always be a conflict to find paths on the WCML.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Retaining the Sellafield-Egremont-Whitehaven line would have made more sense than the kept Sellafield-St Bees-Whitehaven line as Egremont has way more inhabitants than anything on the coast

 

[Edgeley]

But would it have been better if the Hope Valley line had shut instead of the Woodhead route?

Neither/nor really. Woodhead was the more direct route and from that point of view better for passenger services but it had the downside of terminating in a separate, less well-connected station in Sheffield. The Hope line's major freight commodity, limestone, promised to have a more enduring future than Woodhead's coal.

 

[snowball]

Woodhead was the more direct route.

Neither the Hope Valley rote nor the Woodhead route look very direct on the map. How far was it frm Manchester to Sheffield via Woodhead?

 

[Edgeley]

Neither the Hope Valley rote nor the Woodhead route look very direct on the map. How far was it frm Manchester to Sheffield via Woodhead?

Well there is a big hill in between. Slightly to my surprise, the Hope route via Romiley (42 miles) is almost the same as Woodhead was (41.5). The current road mileage using the Woodhead Pass is identical to the former rail mileage. Road mileage via the Snake Pass is a touch lower at 38 miles.

 

[matacaster]

Bradford -< Leeds via Pudsey should have been kept. Line now used via New Pudsey is faster but the latter is some distance from Pudsey centre.

 

[Flying Claret]

Well there is a big hill in between. Slightly to my surprise, the Hope route via Romiley (42 miles) is almost the same as Woodhead was (41.5). The current road mileage using the Woodhead Pass is identical to the former rail mileage. Road mileage via the Snake Pass is a touch lower at 38 miles.

How do they compare in terms of journey times. End to end?

 

[randyrippley]

Personally, I think the Lancaster Green Ayre to Morecambe line should have been kept and the Bare Lane line closed down. It was probably the right decision at the time, given rail traffic in the 70s (oil trains, long holiday trains etc needing quick/easy access to the main line). But, given today's rail traffic which is just DMUs and the occasional nuclear flask train, the Green Ayre line would do the same. But more importantly, the Green Ayre line would have facilitated a better local commuter/shopper route of more regular shuttles between Heysham, Morecambe, and Lancaster without needing to go onto the WCML at all and more people live near to the old Green Ayre/Scale Hall/Westgate route meaning far more people would use it to travel locally thus reducing car congestion etc especially if Scale Hall station had survived and maybe new small stations near Torrisholme, West End, Heysham etc where population density would now merit it. The Bare Lane route is useful for people living near Bare Lane (for which it is busy), but comparatively few people live near Morecambe station nor Heysham station, so the surviving line doesn't have the same scope for expansion of numbers and even so, there'll always be a conflict to find paths on the WCML.

The original intention was to keep the Green Ayre line, but the County Council wanted Greyhound Bridge for road traffic, so a secret deal was done.
The interesting question is whether Wennington-Green Ayre would have remained open with Wennington-Cardiff closing? And would the electrification have survived, or been upgraded to 25kV?

 

[Edgeley]

How do they compare in terms of journey times. End to end?

I haven't got old timetables to compare times. Arguably the more significant thing, with hindsight, about losing one route is the loss of capacity rather than any great differences in journey times.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

In my neck of the woods, the Leeds "New Line" via Heckmondwike would be well-used today as well as offering an extra 2 tracks between Leeds and Huddersfield, not to mention a more direct diversionary route than going via Healey Mills and Normanton. However if only one could survive (a premise which I believe was always flawed anyway) the right choice was made. Just a shame the alignment wasn't protected when the M62/M621 junction was built.

 

[Helvellyn]

If Woodhead had survived how feasible would it have been to divert services to Sheffield Midland and still close Sheffield Victoria?

Was there ever any consideration to closing the Midland Mainline between Bedford and Leicester and keeping the Great Central open? Not that I'd want the Midland Mainline closed but could the East Coast have handled Nottingham services via Grantham (old Great Northern route) and then just have a Marylebone - Rugby - Leicester - Derby - Sheffield.

 

[Esker-pades]

If Woodhead had survived how feasible would it have been to divert services to Sheffield Midland and still close Sheffield Victoria?

Was there ever any consideration to closing the Midland Mainline between Bedford and Leicester and keeping the Great Central open? Not that I'd want the Midland Mainline closed but could the East Coast have handled Nottingham services via Grantham (old Great Northern route) and then just have a Marylebone - Rugby - Leicester - Derby - Sheffield.

That would create serious capacity problems from Marylebone. Chiltern can't run enough services to meet demand as it is, let alone add a whole new main line to it.

 

[Flying Claret]

In my neck of the woods, the Leeds "New Line" via Heckmondwike would be well-used today as well as offering an extra 2 tracks between Leeds and Huddersfield, not to mention a more direct diversionary route than going via Healey Mills and Normanton. However if only one could survive (a premise which I believe was always flawed anyway) the right choice was made. Just a shame the alignment wasn't protected when the M62/M621 junction was built.

Is that the line that heads North East after Hecky and under/past fieldhead estate at birstall? Looks a long way round that...

 

[tbtc]

Beeching proposed the withdrawal of all passenger services on the Hope Valley route between Sheffield and Manchester. There was a reprieve, and subsequently it was the Woodhead route which got the axe. With hindsight the Woodhead line should have been retained too.

Woodhead was great when we had huge quantities of heavy freight to lug over the Pennines.

But you could see which way the wind was blowing by the early '80s - Tinsley Yard was a fraction of what it once was, the decline of the Dearne Valley coal fields meant no need for the Wath branch either.

Take that away and what have you got?

• Passenger services that require a separate station at the Sheffield end, so no integration with other services?
• The "expresses" between two large cities inevitably stuck behind stoppers that take half an hour to cover a dozen miles west of Dinting.
• Very little intermediate population (the line skirted past Deepcar but didn't serve Stocksbridge and didn't serve anywhere of population density on its route out of Sheffield - have a look at the corridor through Neepsend/ past the bottom of the Ski Village/ the allotments at Shirecliffe/ even at Wadsley Bridge there's not many people living near the line - it'd be little use for folk in Hillsborough - Penistone currently has direct trains to Huddersfield/ Barnsley/ Sheffield so I'm not counting that as somewhere that would have been kept on the map by retaining the Woodhead line)

With the Hope Valley route you've got:

• The one station at the Sheffield end (keeping things much simpler).
• The ability to overtake stoppers between Stockport and Manchester.
• Multiple routes west of Chinley.
• Connection to other routes at the Dore triangle / towards Altrincham.
• A viable freight business that continues to this day (an annoyingly busy one, given the impact that the cement trains have upon Hope Valley stoppers, but if it's an "either/or" thread then I've got to accept that the Hope Valley cement outlasted the Sheffield Steel/ Dearne Valley Coal)
• A convenient intermediate stop at Stockport, which is a large place and a convenient interchange for other lines

Some enthusiasts will answer the "either/or" question with "both of the lines should have been retained" but to answer the OP's question of "Was it, in hindsight, the right decision to retain the former and close the latter?", I'd say that in hindsight it was clearly the right decision to retain the Hope Valley route and close the Woodhead (if we are starting from the point that only one could survive).

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Is that the line that heads North East after Hecky and under/past fieldhead estate at birstall? Looks a long way round that...

I think so, though there are bits of old lines all over the place round there, and I'm not always sure which bits connected to which other bits! The old line that runs along what is now the edge of Oakwell Hall country park was part of the "Leeds New Line", not far from where the motorway obliterates the route.

The main reason it'd be useful today wouldn't be as a fast route from Leeds to Manchester, but to allow residents of Hecky/Clecky/etc. to use rail to get to Leeds or Huddersfield rather than driving or using Arriva's buses which both get snarled up in traffic jams every 200 yards along the A62. As a diversion for the existing line it wouldn't be quite as fast as normal, but a fair bit quicker than going via Wakefield and Normanton.

If both routes were extant, sharing the fast services between both would allow a more frequent (2tph) all-shacks service on both without the expresses tripping over them, especially if (as they would be in an ideal world) both were electrified.

 

[snowball]

Woodhead was great when we had huge quantities of heavy freight to lug over the Pennines.

But you could see which way the wind was blowing by the early '80s - Tinsley Yard was a fraction of what it once was, the decline of the Dearne Valley coal fields meant no need for the Wath branch either.

Didn't the writing on the wall for the Woodhead route come much sooner than than that? In the 1960s, when they built power stations on the Yorkshire side of the Pennines where the remaining coalfields were, and started transmitted electricity across instead of carrying coal.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Retaining the Sellafield-Egremont-Whitehaven line would have made more sense than the kept Sellafield-St Bees-Whitehaven line as Egremont has way more inhabitants than anything on the coast

That's an interesting one, about which I know next to nothing. Wait, let's be truthful - nothing! So, why didn't they keep the Egremont route, pray tell (as best you can)? Was it longer? Slower? or ... ?

 

[gordonthemoron]

That's an interesting one, about which I know next to nothing. Wait, let's be truthful - nothing! So, why didn't they keep the Egremont route, pray tell (as best you can)? Was it longer? Slower? or ... ?

It was closed at several times between 1935 and it's final closure in 1969, I am suspecting subsidence due to mine workings

 

[70014IronDuke]

... Was there ever any consideration to closing the Midland Mainline between Bedford and Leicester and keeping the Great Central open? Not that I'd want the Midland Mainline closed but could the East Coast have handled Nottingham services via Grantham (old Great Northern route) and then just have a Marylebone - Rugby - Leicester - Derby - Sheffield.

I would assume 'some' consideration was given to it, but it was probably dismissed pretty quickly. Yes, Nottingham and Sheffield traffic could have gone via the ECML. Derby and Leicester via Nuneaton, (or, though I never heard any talk of it back in the day, Sheffield and Derby could have gone via a re-instated chord at Tamworth.)

I think the 'problem' was Wellingborough-Kettering and to a lesser extent, Market Harboro. You could have put the latter at the end of a simple branch from Northampton, I suppose, but Well-Kets was just too big a population. You couldn't cut them off, and going via Northampton would have been unacceptably slow, and needed a reversal or new chords installing.

As I recall, the plans mooted back in the day (1965-69 type era) were to send MML traffic via Nuneaton and rationalise (think Salisbury-Exeter) Leicester - Bedford. I don't know how serious these 'plans' were, but at the end of the day, presumably the savings clearly weren't considered enough.

But going back to the GC vs Midland argument - clearly there was no real argument. The GC had no equivalent of Wellingborough-Kettering, nor even Harborough - which alone was way bigger than Brackley-Woodford Halse. And Luton+ Bedford were surely bigger traffic generators for additional northbound traffic than Wycombe/Aylesbury and area.

 

[70014IronDuke]

That would create serious capacity problems from Marylebone. Chiltern can't run enough services to meet demand as it is, let alone add a whole new main line to it.

You are too coloured by the 'modern' situation. Back in the 60s Marylebone had a 2 TPH suburban service during the day, and I'm pretty sure could have managed a 1 or 2 TPH inter-city service, though maybe they'd have had to run via the joint GC-GWR line.

 

[Esker-pades]

You are too coloured by the 'modern' situation. Back in the 60s Marylebone had a 2 TPH suburban service during the day, and I'm pretty sure could have managed a 1 or 2 TPH inter-city service, though maybe they'd have had to run via the joint GC-GWR line.

Where would that leave the Oxford expresses though?

 

[70014IronDuke]

Where would that leave the Oxford expresses though?

What Oxford expresses? They were beyond the wildest crayonista's imagination in the 1960s.
Of course, had they made such rationalisations back then, the situation today would have made such services very difficult to introduce.

 

[70014IronDuke]

It was closed at several times between 1935 and it's final closure in 1969, I am suspecting subsidence due to mine workings

That's an interesting one. On the map, the Egremont route could have been even shorter than via St Bees. And ok, there may well have been subsidence, but the St Bees' line could yet fall into the sea!

Edit - Plus you'd have a small town of 8,000 people today on a rail line.

 

[Western Lord]

You are too coloured by the 'modern' situation. Back in the 60s Marylebone had a 2 TPH suburban service during the day, and I'm pretty sure could have managed a 1 or 2 TPH inter-city service, though maybe they'd have had to run via the joint GC-GWR line.

So we would today be stuck with the same level of service as in the sixties? The joint line was several miles longer than the Aylesbury line and would have had to share tracks with Paddington expresses and locals. When will people understand that the GC "London" extension never reached London on its own, was only double track and relied on using the Metropolitan line or the longer diversion via High Wyccombe. In contrast, the Midland had four tracks from London to north of Kettering (and then alternative routes to the north).